Drills
In both games of the PAYDAY series, the Drill is among the list of mandatory items whose usage is required in almost every map. Although initially slow and prone to jamming, the performance of drills can be enhanced with the proper Skills. Gameplay Drills provides access to locked doors and safes, and is one of the most useful and widely-needed tools of the trade. By default drills break through very slowly and noisily, and are prone to jamming which makes even more noise than usual, though these can be remedied by having the right skills. High-level players generally tend to forgo the drill completely, however, as certain high-tier skills provides access to faster and/or more efficient alternatives to drilling such as Shaped Charges, the use of the Saw and the ECM Jammer's Overdrive, though due to their usually limited amount of uses, and due to the fact that the first two are relatively noisy, the Drill remains a viable option. There are also more spots to drill than there are places to put down Shaped Charges or use the Saw so drilling is almost always necessary. Certain heists have their own unique drill that must be used as part of the mission objectives, such as the Golden Grin Casino and Big Bank. Drill Types Common Drill The basic drill comprises of a dark blue common drill fastened to a mount and has an electronic screen that shows the drill's progress. Almost any heist has a drillable spot, ranging from door locks to deposit boxes, with most of them being early mission objectives and/or sub-objectives as in the case of Safes. How the drills manages to anchor themselves to the drilled surface without dropping due to sheer weight and/or spinning around due to the drill's movement is never explained. Except very few instances, drills share a same mechanic for its possibility to "jam". Any drill placed is scripted to jam between 1 and 3 times, based on a random selection made at the instant the drill is placed. This holds true for both the common drills and the thermal drills in Payday 2. Some heists feature drills that will not jam (as in the Overdrill and Counterfeit in PAYDAY: The Heist; Big Bank and Golden Grin Casino of Payday 2), though the drills featured can be disabled by other means. They are also much slower than the common drills. In PAYDAY: The Heist the drill's position is highlighted with a yellow silhouette of the drill itself while in PAYDAY 2 the crew must find a viable spot and then deploy the equipment. 2014-10-04_00001.jpg|PAYDAY: The Heist drill silhouette. 2014-10-04_00002.jpg|Drilling a Vault gate in First World Bank. 218620_screenshots_2014-08-28_00002.jpg|A PAYDAY 2 Drill. Thermal Drill In certain heists, most notably Bank Heists, a Thermal Drill is required to break through reinforced vault doors. These drills are either spawned on set or dropped in after a vault has been reached as in the case of the Train and Hotline Miami heists. As Thermal Drills can only be deployed from individual kits, usually only one unit can be up and running at once, though certain scenarios also allows the crew to purchase an additional drill bag so they can work on two vaults at the same time. Thermal Drills appear to be more visible and audibly noisier than basic drills, though these aspects do not affect gameplay any differently than regular drills do. They have a base drilling time of 360 seconds, and use the same jamming mechanics as normal drills. Due to the longer drilling time, they appear to jam less frequently, however do jam just as often as regular drills. Thermal Drills are affected by all the same skills as regular drills (see below): * Hardware Expert is, relatively speaking, less useful for Thermal Drills than regular drills as jamming proportionally takes up less of the total drilling time. However, when going loud on higher difficulties, any reduction in the time spent holding out against the cops waiting for the drill is probably a good thing. * Drill Sergeant is incredibly useful for Thermal Drills as its effect is in proportion to the base drilling duration. The Aced version of the skill will reduce total drilling time by almost 2 minutes. * Silent Drilling is almost entirely useless for Thermal Drills. Usually Thermal Drills will only be used either when the heist has already gone loud or when no-one remains who would be able to hear the drill. ** Silent Drilling is arguably of negative value for Thermal Drills on Train in particular - due to a minor bug in the AI, guards who can hear but not see a Thermal Drill will often stop and remain entirely stationary unless fully alerted, even after the drilling has stopped. Given that there are five patrolling guards on Train, this is regarded as the only way to complete the mission in stealth. Thermal Drill bags are treated as loot by NPCs and as such guards will sound an alarm if they see one, though those that are spawned on set will not trigger a guard response unless a player picks them up and drops them. Law enforcers will also attempt to take away Thermal Drill bags if left unattended. 218620_screenshots_2014-04-19_00002.jpg|A Thermal Drill being upgraded. 468px-Payday2-41.jpg|Thermal Drill bag in Bank Heist. 2015-01-22_00001.jpg|Thermal Drill parts in the Safe House. The Beast Drill The Beast Drill is an unique heavy duty drill in the Big Bank heist. This drill is required to break through the Bank's heavily reinforced vault door and has to be constructed by the crew on the spot via parts delivered by crane. The Beast Drill is also unique in that once it jams, the crew must fix it with spare parts included in the delivery, or pre-placed beforehand somewhere in the map. The Big Fucking Drill The Big Fucking Drill '''(or '''BFD, for short) is a new drill designed by Russian heister Sokol and is unique to the Golden Grin Casino heist. The BFD is not technically a drill in the conventional sense (especially when compared to the kind usually used by the crew), but rather a plasma arc cutter on a rig that allows it to cut a circular hole. By default it takes 7 minutes (420 seconds) to make a complete cut, has two green water tanks, a breaker panel, a small cabinet (for supplies, initially empty), a ladder, and must be hooked up to the casino power grid via two cables to function. There are three ways for the BFD to shut down; #If there is no water in the tanks, the drill will begin to overheat; it will eventually break down and require repair with spare parts. This can partially be alleviated using the Improved Cooling System and Better Plasma Cutter Upgrades, but the crew will still need to periodically refill the tanks. #If the two wall plugs are removed by law enforcers. The Extra Battery asset (see below) removes the need for one of the cables. #If the drill itself is turned off, also by law enforcers. When the water tanks are empty, players can bag them and bring them to one of the downstairs bathrooms in the casino to be refilled via the sinks. Empty water tanks weigh roughly as much as a bag of money (but it is possible to sprint with them), and full water tanks weigh roughly as much as a weapon, such as in those in Firestarter and Big Oil. Empty tanks take 30 seconds to refill, so they should be filled and replaced before the other tank runs out. The behavior listed above is merely the standard, in Pre-Planning there are additional upgrades to the BFD which are separated into the BFD Upgrades and BFD Attachments categories. All upgrades to the drill are free in terms of cash, but extensive upgrades to it will significantly eat into the team's supply of favours. BFD Upgrades *Improved Cooling System: Doubles the size of the tanks, allowing longer operation between refills. Costs 3 favors. *Engine Optimization: Enables the drill to make a hotter arc, decreasing the time needed to drill. Costs 2 favors. *Additional Engine Power: A power upgrade that enables BFD to create a faster arc. Decreases time required to drill the hole. Costs 3 favors. *Better Plasma Cutter: A high-frequency cutter system makes BFD more reliable and has less chance to overheat if the water tanks are empty. Costs 2 favors. Improved Cooling System and Additional Engine Power are very useful if the crew plans on going loud, reducing the cut time to 5 minutes and the number of total refills required to just one. BFD Attachments *Water level indicator: Displays the current water level of each tank. Costs 1 favor. *Toolbox: Attaches a toolbox with 3 'consumable' tools for repairing the BFD. Costs 1 favor. *Timer: Displays progress of drilling. Costs 1 favor. *Sentry: Give the BFD some self-defence capability with a mounted turret. Costs 3 favors each. *Medkit: Attaches a medkit to the side of the BFD. Costs 2 favors. *Extra Battery: The BFD comes with an extra backup battery, removing the need for the second power cable. Costs 3 favors. While the BFD upgrades themselves are useful, the attachments are less so; *The water level indicator can help somewhat in gauging tank drain speed or warn of an imminent need to refill them, but the tanks can only ever be removed when empty. An empty tank will gain the usual orange outline and Bain will prompt the crew to remove and refill the tank. Note that basic (short green) water tanks drain in 60 seconds and upgraded (tall blue) water tanks drain in 120. *The toolbox is almost completely useless, as a red toolbox in the Loading Bay at the rear of the casino holds replacement parts, and the drill can only break down if it is allowed to overheat. If taken, the attached tools can be found in the supply case next to the drill's main controls. *The timer is not completely necessary as the crew can simply view the hole being cut. The drill takes 7 minutes without upgrades, 6 with Engine Optimization and 5 with Additional Engine Power. Note that the cutting animation still takes 7 minutes to complete and a 5-minute cut will finish with almost a quarter of the arc still visibly uncut. *The turrets may look attractive at first, but come without upgrades and will significantly cut into favour supply that might be better spent on upgrades or other help. Only two turrets can be installed at most, despite the drill having four mounting points. *The medical supplies, as with all dead drops, are only really useful for teams that have a limited supply or wish to carry other supplies, although they do have the benefit of being in close proximity to the BFD. The supplies themselves take the form of a cabinet (similar to those seen in the Infirmary of Hoxton Breakout Day 2) placed within the supply case attached to the rig. *The extra battery has an incorrect description. Instead of allowing the drill to operate when the power has been cut, the battery instead allows the BFD to work with just one cable required to connect instead of two, as the battery will be used in the second outlet. While questionable in a full team, it helps players that play solo or with only one other player. 2015-07-04_00003.jpg|The Big Fucking Drill in action. BFDtimer.jpg|The Big Fucking Drill's timer display when the Timer asset is bought. Seven minutes remain at the start of a cut without any speed upgrades. basic tanks with level indicators.jpg|Un-upgraded green water tanks with level meters from the Water Level Indicator asset. They drain in sixty seconds. Drill-related skills In PAYDAY 2, these skills can optionally be acquired to further enhance the performance of drills in general. Players with more advanced skills can upgrade those set by others. Fixing an inferior drill automatically applies the upgrades. Trivia * The Big Fucking Drill's name and abbreviation is possibly a reference to the game DOOM, the trademark weapon of which is the BFG 9000 or "Big Fucking Gun 9000". * Thermal drilling is also commonly referred to as "friction drilling", a process defined as a method of making holes in metal in which the material is pushed out of the way with the aid of heat. Other names include "flow drilling", "form drilling", and "friction stir drilling". Due to graphic limitations, the thermal-drilled surfaces would always appear spotless. Category:Gameplay (Payday 2) Category:Gameplay